


Appearances Can Be Deceiving

by MissE



Category: Original Work
Genre: Comedy, F/M, Fairy Tales
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-30
Updated: 2011-11-30
Packaged: 2017-10-26 17:29:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/286005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissE/pseuds/MissE
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a princess, there's peas, and there's an ugly old hag. What more could you want? Oh, and a moral at the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Appearances Can Be Deceiving

**Author's Note:**

> This is an original work written for the Fiction Land writing community.

Once upon a time…

Look, I’m telling the story, so I’ll start it how I want it, and I want to start it the way all great fairy tales start. You want it to start a different way, you tell a different story. But not now; now’s my turn.

Once upon a time, there lived a beautiful princess.

Because it’s a fairy tale. Obviously, if it’s going to be a fairy tale, there’s going to be a beautiful something involved. It’s like one of the cardinal rules, or something. So. Once upon a time, beautiful princess: Moving on.

She lived in a castle. Obviously. Because this is a fairy tale, and she’s a princess. If I wanted to talk about peasants in hovels, I’d be plagiarising the Grimm Brothers, and you do not want to do that. They’re not called ‘Grimm’ for nothing. So. Princess. Castle. Right, we’re set.

Anyway, there she was, in her castle, doing princessy things, when this ugly, old hag came up to her. Because security in those days was shite, and that’s all there is to it. Honestly, just about anyone could walk up to princesses in those days, and no one would say anything about it, because those were the good old days, with magic and all. And, of course, if it’s an ugly old hag, you just know it’s actually either a beautiful fairy or a wicked witch, and either way you’re stuffed unless you’re an insufferably nice and polite person who always gives their last scrap of food to ugly old hags, not to mention arranges the best of accommodations, and a nice fat purse of gold for said hag, all out of the kindness of your pure gold heart, only to find that you’ve come across the only implacably cynical ugly, old hag who is unimpeachably suspicious of sweet-natured, innocent young things. Basically: damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

Where was I?

Oh, yeah. So, the UOH rocks up to the princess, and ‘craves a boon.’ Honestly did they even speak that way back then? They say they did, so that’s how it’s going. And, of course, the princess offers to grant the boon unconditionally. Because she’s a princess, and therefore an idiot. Well, the boon that the idiot princess decided to grant is that she would go back with the UOH, and marry her son.

Well… Now the unmentionable excrement has really made contact with the indirect cooling device! Daddy, AKA the King, is _not happy_. Maybe that should be: Not. Happy. Of course, Daddy, AKA the King, had already had plans for the espousal of his beautiful, yet intellectually challenged offspring. Plans which involved treaties, and politics, and all kinds of things that make a sane person run in the opposite direction, and cause beautiful yet vapid princesses to frown prettily, and exclaim softly that they don’t understand. At which point, one points in a certain direction, and says, ‘Him.’ Of course, the princess is supposed to take one look at the handsome prince (and, once again, I say: it’s a fairy tale!) and swoon into his arms, thereby sealing the match.

Except, of course, said idiot princess is also of noble blood, and takes that quite seriously. (Of course she does. Because anything less would make life easier for everyone else concerned, and we can’t have that, now can we?) So she nobly turns from her handsome, connected, _eligible_ suitor, and follows the UOH to her doom. Er, I mean, to marry the hag’s son.

Well, there’s a long, tedious, arduous journey that we could put in here, but, suffice to say, it was long, tedious, and arduous, especially for the UOH, who was beginning to wonder if she’d made quite the right choice for her son. After all, pretty the princess might be (oh, all right: beautiful) but there really wasn’t much of a brain under all that hair. But she was unfailingly polite, and at least attempted to eat what was put before her. Of course, she couldn’t, and by the time they arrived at their destination, she was covered from head to foot with bruises, having suffered terribly, don’t you know, from ‘Princess and the Pea’ syndrome. Don’t mock – it’s a legitimate syndrome found in persons of especially exalted bloodlines. A truly noble princess can’t even come within half a mile of a dried pea without coming up in welts. And, as I said before, this princess was very noble.

So the poor princess finally arrived at the scene of her ultimate downfall … er, the hag’s hovel… Actually, I’m not sure that was an improvement. Moving on: They arrive. And out comes the UOH’s darling son. And let’s just say that he’s not exactly an improvement on the bloodstock. So much so that the lovely, if exceedingly bruised young woman bursts into tears, and promptly faints.

But she’s a good girl, noble bloodline, all that, and, after a cup of tea, and a good lie down (on a regulation pea-free mattress) she arises to say that she will do exactly as she has promised to do, and marry the UOH’s son, and be a good wife to him. And so she does.

It was a lovely ceremony, complete with homespun gown and thistle bouquet for the bride, clean shirt for the groom, and tears for the hag, er, mother of the groom. The father of the bride wasn’t able to give his beloved daughter away, as he was too busy coping with his wife’s strong hysterics, and, frankly, didn’t want to know anything about the wedding. The local blacksmith officiated – very fancy! – and the wedding feast actually contained one or two mouthfuls the bride might have considered edible. Unfortunately, the village urchin managed to snatch them from the table while the princess was shaking hands with the blacksmith’s wife. Instead, she had to make do with black bread and hard cheese, which is actually quite nutritious, if only you’re able to stomach it. The princess learned to … eventually.

Well, the fairy tale standard of a year and a day passed, and the princess was still married to the hag’s son, and was doing her best to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. (The old sow had finally bitten it, and the hag had suspiciously given the princess the ear, even though she knew that even strong magics were never going to make that ear anything other than a dog’s treat.) The princess had learned what a cleaning rag was for, and had finally gotten used to the presence of dried peas (the first few months of living next door to Mother Arbuckle had been hard!) and had miraculously yet to lose her figure. She was sweet and gracious, even if her head was still remarkably empty, and she had come to fondly call the old hag ‘Mother.’ (The UOH still flinched at the sound.)

So, with her prison term, er, fairy tale standard period of time up, the UOH invited the girl in to morning tea of hard cheese and brown bread.

“Do you remember how we met?” the UOH asked the girl.

“Oh, yes, Mother,” the girl gushed, not noticing the woman’s flinch. “You came to me in my father’s castle, and craved a boon.”

“That I did,” the old hag nodded, “that I did. And granted it, you did. And stuck by it, this whole year and a day. And you’ve worked hard, and been a good wife to my son, and for that I thank you. Indeed, I rather brought you here under false pretences,” she added, nodding sagely.

“You did?” the princess gasped. “But, Mother,” she cried, ignoring the flinch, “whatever shall I do?”

“Oh, no,” the hag dismissed, “it’s nothing like that. You’re married, good and proper, there’s no problem there. The, uh, manner of my deceit, if you will, is that I’m not an ugly old hag, and my son is not a crude peasant, and this village is not even the model of poverty you think you’ve been living in for the last year and a day.”

“Oh, Mother!” the princess gasped, wide-eyed.

“Okay, look,” the hag began crossly. “I’m not your mother. You have a mother, and I’m not it, okay? If you must call me anything, it’s Charlotte, or ma’am.”

The princess bit her lip. “Yes, M- ma’am,” she agreed, blushing.

“Right,” the non-hag nodded firmly. “I’m not a hag, my son doesn’t look like something the cat dragged in and vomited up upon, and this place isn’t a hovel. The fact of the matter is that I’m the Fairy Queen of this land, and my son is the very handsome Fairy Prince. And that’s a capital-f fairy, not the other kind, not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I’m just saying.”

The princess blushed vividly, and coughed. “Uh, yes, Mo-, ma’am. I, um, I had rather noticed that.”

The non-hag raised a lecherous eyebrow. “I heard,” she smirked. “Regularly.” She cleared her throat, and smoothed her skirt. “So I’m the Fairy Queen, and all this is an illusion. I did it because I wanted to be sure that the girl I chose for my son was a good person, and not one so concerned with appearances that she would reject someone just because they didn’t match up to her version of perfection. But you have proved yourself, and now I shall remove the illusion, and we shall all go back to what we are really like.”

“Oh, Mo-, ma’am,” the princess gushed. “You are so very wise and wonderful. I am only grateful that I found favour in your eyes, and -”

At this point, the Queen cut her off, and waved her hand, removing the illusion on the area, and all the inhabitants. The prince walked in, a vision of masculine beauty and grace, and swept his beloved bride off to ‘show her his etchings.’ Promptly nine months later, they had the requisite son and heir, and then fired off another eleven sons and twelve daughters to round out the royal dancing team, and ensure the royal magical gynaecologist had work for life. As one does.

So: The moral of the story? Well, officially, it’s _Appearances Can Be Deceiving_. Unofficially? _Even Idiots Can Luck Out_.

Good night, good luck, and – for God’s sake – avoid ugly old hags. Because while appearances _can_ be deceiving, they aren’t always.


End file.
